By Brian Roe, Sports Writer

ACU fell to third place in the Lone Star Conference South Division over the weekend after dropping consecutive matches to West Texas A&M and Eastern New Mexico.

The Lady Buffs ran their streak of 22 consecutive wins over ACU by soundly defeating the Wildcats Friday night in three straight games 30-25, 30-26 and 30-26. Saturday afternoon ACU lost to Eastern New Mexico in a tough five-game match, 17-30, 30-25, 27-30, 30-23, 15-12.

The Wildcats beat Eastern New Mexico Oct. 10 in three straight games, but head coach Brek Horn said her team did not play well in the rematch.

“We knew it would be tougher this time because we were on the road for two straight games, but we had didn’t expect to play like this,” Horn said. “We won the first game and then went back and forth, I mean we didn’t play our best, but we didn’t play poorly either.”

Horn said she was pleased with the contributions from two of her sophomores, Michelle Bernhardt and Amanda Slate, who each had kills in double digits in the matches against West Texas A&M and Eastern New Mexico.

ACU, now 22-10, 5-3 in the LSC South Division, could still clench second place in the LSC South Division with wins over Tarleton State Thursday and Texas A&M-Kingsville Saturday. The Wildcats already have the upper hand over Eastern New Mexico because ACU has won more overall games against the Zias.

“I think that we play more confident and have more success at home,” Horn said. “We are not taking these teams lightly, but we lost our last match of the year last season, and it cost us a bid to the conference tournament. We are kind of using that as our motivation and as a reminder to play the best we can and capitalize on every opportunity.”

Horn said the team is going back to the basics this week in practice in preparation for this weekend.

“We are going to work on elementary skills,” Horn said. “We have been playing sloppy and want to sharpen our passing and our hitting. Hopefully that will help clean up our game.”